Thanks all. I did figure it out eventually. Found a spot where I could Jump/fly to a different section of beach which gave me access.
I’m at end in the upper city. Is this the homestretch – one or more linear fights? Or is this another area to explore, do quests, etc.?
I assume I’m going to find out that Volo is the puppet master behind the scenes pretty soon and I’ll get to hang him with all the rope I’ve been collecting in my camp trunk.
You read the Upper City in the very end stretch. A bit in a gatehouse/tower where you rally the team then the final string of fights to the end of the game.
Couple Final Run Tips if You Want 'Em
Don’t be afraid to use your allies; there’s only three or four ‘sections’ and they’re not terribly long.
The second section is a race to the top and you shouldn’t be fighting any more than you have to (Invis, Sanctuary, movement spells like Misty Step, etc are all good here). You actually get yelled at by your companion if you spend too long fighting dudes.
There’s a full rest doohicky at the top of the second stage just before the transition to the next part so don’t be afraid of using spells/abilities either. You can get them all refreshed before proceeding.
Thanks for the tips. They’re very helpful – especially knowing you don’t have to budget spells and abilities.
I finally learned how to throw healing potions in the final battle. Turns out Lae’zel is the best healer in the party because she can toss three Supreme Healings in a single turn.
I thought the AI was more effective in the final fight than in previous encounters. Maybe it was just the make-up of the enemies vs. my party. The AI used more drop weapon and silence strategies rather than just attacking the lowest AC.
Finally the allies mechanism was not what I expected. From a playability standpoint it is better because it lets the player self-balance the difficulty.
Finally got hold of this and am, as always, paralyzed at the character creation screen. I never know how the various choices will mesh with the companions, plot lines, and items I’ll find.
So: I know I want to try Dark Urge, and ideally play a character with good charisma. Playing on Tactician. Any advice from the hivemind?
All of these are among the strongest classes in the game - Paladin, Sorcerer and Bard are right at the top of the list. So it just depends on play style. Bards are stronger than usual in BG3 because they are full spellcasters in this milieu that can also make good ranged/melee characters, while being a jack of all trades skill-wise. Sorcerers are probably the strongest spellcasters, period. Paladins likely are the strongest single-target damage dealer in the game and overall just very effective and can be pretty tanky.
If you asked my preferences among subclasses:
Paladin - Oath of Ancients (best auras)
Sorcerer - Draconic bloodline (improved AC and elemental damage)
Bard - Sword Bard (the ranged dual hand-crossbow machine-gunner is a bit of a meme)
But really all of them work. BG3 can be tough for new players to adjust to, but once you do it isn’t incredibly punishing and most builds should work okay, even on tactician. Especially the charisma classes.
Dual handcrossbows just got nerfed though.
Honestly you can play anything, even on technician, and you’ll be fine. If you want to avoid doubling up on classes with a companion then bard is probably your best bet. Multi-classing a paladin with sorc or warlock is also really popular and powerful.
How so?
Really happy I just finished a certain quest line because today’s patch made it so you can’t throw that jerk off a cliff.
I was curious so I checked the latest patch notes.
For what it matters, the devs recommend not playing Dark Urge on your first run. But it’s still perfectly viable, it just impacts the story in ways that might be difficult without context.
For a charisma character, I’d go bard. Powerful caster, have some fun in melee. Paladin for a second choice. My first character was a Rogue/Barbarian and, with Expertise in Deception, I was just as socially capable as any of the Charisma-based characters I’ve played since.
(Just my opinion but Sorc feels a bit redundant with Gale available and Warlock – which I’m actually playing now – just feels a bit limited to me versus the standard casters)
The removed the full damage from the off-hand attack. You need to get the Dual Wielder feat to get the same result now, same as it was with melee.
Also with Bard, the subclasses are all pretty equal depending on what you want to go for.
The College of Lore is considered by many to be the weakest because the Lore bard really isn’t designed to get into melee. You will be relegated to support role. However, if you’re fine with that, you will be one of the most powerful support classes out there.
But if purely support isn’t your thing, Valour might be better for the ability to balance spell-casting with martial prowess.
But I find that my standard four-party makeup of Fighter, Tempest Cleric ('cause Trickery Clerics comparatively suck and the starting stats on that companion suck as well), Wizard, and my Lore Bard tend to have little difficulty in most combats on standard difficulty.
By level 5, it really doesn’t matter what build you have. BG3 is well-designed in that there really isn’t a bad build if you try to have your talents align. Larian did great with the balance. Even classes considered “weakest” by pure mechanical standards won’t be too weak on normal difficulty. So play what interests you.
(Bard’s arguably do have the best options for out of combat interactions though. There have been many times I’ve been tempted to take the smart-ass response, knowing it won’t lead to good things, just because it’s amusing.)
I’m surprised to hear anyone calling Lore bards weak. Even in 5e against all the extra competition, they’re considered a top tier subclass for Magical Secrets alone.
I’d say go Lore if you want to be more caster with a dash of extra support from the extra skills you’ll get. Go Swords if you want to be a gish melee fighter since Swords gets Extra Attack. Valor is sort of the odd man out, not a bad choice since it’ll play fine but hard to recommend it over the other two.
I guess technically that’s a nerf, but functionally it’s just a minor bugfix since Sword Bard gets two-weapon fighting for free (at level three). It just means you can’t have both dueling AND two-weapon ranged which, eh - no big deal.
True. It’s more of a nerf for Drow or other hand crossbow users who don’t have easy access to the skill. When I played my Drow Druid, I probably did more damage with dual hand crossbows than with my spells in many fights.
I think valor bard is considered the weakest because its just sword bard without the good stuff.
Karlach Story Spoilers:
I am not finished with the game yet (I have two of the three stones I need) so anything could still happen but I was very surprised that I did not find a cure for Karlach at the Steel Watch Foundry. One of the Watch ID’ed her technology as defective and suggested she go there for repair which seemed to hint that that was where the story would go. I thought maybe it was because I was unable to save any of the Gondians in the factory and that maybe was why but I did some Googling and apparently that does not matter. For such a well put together story that seem like a weird false lead.
Spoilers related to Karlach, the Gondians and Repairs
Karlach Act III Story Spoilers
It doesn’t tell her to go for repairs though. It id’s her as a defective unit and tells her to report to the Foundry for disassembly.
Karlach: “Hey Metal-Man, if I report to this Foundry, can my engine be fixed?”
Steel Watcher: “Your make is very obsolete. Repairing your engine would not only be impractical but impossible. Report to the Steel Watch Foundry for immediate dismantling.”
A lot… A LOT… of internet people feel that the Gondians should be repairing her but I don’t think it was intended to be read that way. Karlach was sold off to Zariel to be experimented on as a prototype. Zariel put the prototype engine in her which works okay so long as she stays in Avernus but it otherwise going to kill her. Zariel gave the tech, in some form, to Gortash and Gortash had the Gondians turn it into the Steel Watch. But the Steel Watch is a bunch of robots being controlled by remote zombie brains, not an engine powering a living being (originally, the Steel Watch was supposed to be a bunch of gnomes and halflings in mech suits before Gortash figured out the tadpole-zombie-brain thing).
In other words, just because you figured out how to put a hot dangerous engine in a robot doesn’t mean you can repair the fucked up bionic woman put together with prototype technology and diabolical magic. If anything, the situation suggests the opposite: Zariel wanted bionic warriors (or else she’d have stuck her engine in a golem instead of buying Karlach to host it) and the Gondians determined that putting an engine in a person just doesn’t work – at least in this plane – so you gotta use robots.
Related Mini Rant
The other “Gotcha” people try to complain about is Gale’s True Resurrection scroll and how come you can’t use that on Karlach to fix all her problems. Except that True Resurrection in BG3 is just a slightly stronger Revivify. The 5e version of True Rez says you can get your body reformed, etc. The BG3 version of True Rez says (if you click on the spell name on the scroll) that you come back to life at full hit points versus Revivify which says you come back to life with 1hp. That’s the difference. No regeneration, no reconstituting your body from ash, etc.
You might as well complain that Polymorph won’t let your party turn into squids and swim to the Iron Throne which you could totally do in 5e. The spell just doesn’t do that in this version.
Any suggestions for a third run through?
Did a pally love Shadowheart good ending
Did a sorc drow kinthara romance Drudge
Thinking about doing a Kinthari male romance Laezel as a theis run through but afraid it will be too borong
I am 165 hours in and only now seeing the end just over the horizon. Doing that twice more sounds exhausting!